One Bad Random

Going Green

I decided a few weeks ago to visit my parents since it had been a while. We called the day before and reminded them to turn on the air conditioner. Even though we live in Texas and the weather had been in the high 90s to low 100s, they had decided that they weren't going to run the air conditioner. I could understand this if money was particularly tight, but it isn't. They still go out to eat a couple of times a day. It turns out that my mom was mad that the electric rates had gone up. But that still wasn't why she wasn't running the air conditioner. No, it was because they raised the electricity rates on her church. So, in protest, she was partially boycotting the electric company by turning off her air conditioner and living in extreme discomfort. At night they take turns sitting in the bathtub to cool off. Worse yet, they turn off the lights because all of the windows are open and they don't want everyone to see them naked. So, you've got two 70 year olds getting in and out of the bathtub in the dark. I'm sure the utility company will cave to their "demands" any day now.

These Computers Keep Breaking

As soon as we arrive, I find out that both of their computers have something wrong with them. My dad hit the phone line with the weed eater. That knocked out the DSL. When the phone people came out to fix it they "did something on one of the computers." That took care of that one. The other computer "has problems if you leave it alone and don't bring it down completely." Yeah. Next:

Mom: Your cousin gave us one of those fax copiers things.
Me: A printer/fax/scanner/copier in one?
Mom: I think so. But one of them doesn't work. If you get it working I want to give it to Carl for faxes.
Me: Does he get a lot of faxes?
Dad: NO, HE AIN'T GOT A FAX MACHINE.
Mom: Well, no. But with this he could.
Me: Then it sounds like I won't be able to get it working.
Mom: Oh, and our old scanner stopped working. It won't light up any more.
Dad: TRIED TO GET ONE OF THEM BULBS BUT THEY DON'T HAVE THEM.
Mom: We bought a new one but it doesn't have the thing for this computer but they said you could get it on the internet.
Me: Like buy it on the internet?
Dad: NO, YOU CAN GET IT ON THE INTERNET.
Me: Download it?
Mom: Maybe.
Dad: YEAH. DOWNLOAD IT.
Me: Why not just wait until I came and have me pick a scanner out for you?
Mom: Oh, we don't want to bother you with that.
Me: That plan might not be working out.

The computer that the phone guy messed with turns out to be really easy to fix. It's just that the dial up networking keeps popping up. Done and done. One computer in one night seems good enough for me so I'm done with working on computers for the day.

Next, I try to figure out why my parents won't play the Wii I bought for them. I'm always hearing these stories about old people loving Wiis. My hope was that they'd be playing the living shit out of it and I could buy them Wii fit to further whip them into shape. Unfortunately, they're still playing the SNES. I can't pry them off of that piece of shit. I gave them an N64, a Playstation 2, and a Wii. Nope. They love that fucking SNES. I decide that I at least am going to play the damn thing. After turning it on I notice that the picture on the television isn't all that great. In the process of trying to fix it I get shocked half a dozen times. Since I no longer have feeling in my index finger I decide I may as well go to bed.

Los Barrios

As usual, by the time Lisa and I wake up on Saturday my parents immediately begin hounding us about where we want to go eat lunch/breakfast. I had seen a place called Los Barrios on the Food Network show Throwdown with Bobby Flay. Lisa and I had been wanting to try their famous puffy tacos so we pulled up a map and printed it out.

The car ride over is the typical white knuckle affair of my dad alternating between riding the ass of the car in front of him, trying to match the exact speed of other cars trying to merge into his lane, and second guessing the directions I got from Google Maps. Eventually we make it there and have a pretty good lunch. The puffy tacos are okay. I don't think I'd get them again but my dad seemed to be extremely impressed with their quesadillas. The parents sounded like they would go back so in all likelihood we will, since it's so hard to find places they don't bitch about (family trait).

At the end of the meal my wife tries to pay and my dad is very insistent that he will be paying for the meal. I excuse myself to go to the bathroom and on the way tell the waiter to just put it on my credit card. I get back to the table quite pleased with myself. When my parents find out what I've done the drama beings. "What did you do!?" my mother exclaims. "Goddammit, why did you do that," my dad asks. The whole thing last several minutes and is just so darn precious.

After getting back to the house I try and figure out what is wrong with the other computer. It seems to lock up if you let it idle too long. I finally figure out it's the fact that the screen saver is activating. After installing Windows updates and upgrading the graphics driver I successfully change the expected up time of the computer from 30 minutes to roughly 30 seconds. That's right. It now blue screens immediately on boot up if I'm not in safe mode. A number of video artifacts on the screen lead me to believe it's either a problem with the RAM (which is shared by the graphics card) or the graphics card itself. I download and run memtest to rule out the memory. I figure the next day I'll just run to Best Buy and get a PCI (it only has an old fashioned PCI expansion slot) graphics card.

Adventures at Denny's

Meanwhile it's already time for dinner somehow. I'm still kind of full from lunch. My parents ask us where we want to go. After a lot of exchanges in the form of "anywhere is fine", we settle on the lowest common denominator of all restaurants–Denny's.

The whole evening is action packed. First, I find out that Carl now has his own house. My wife and I both express amazement at this fact. After much poking and prodding it comes out that my parents bought the house for him and he is somehow maybe going to someday pay for it or something. But not only does he have a house, his crazy girlfriend from Arizona is living in the house even though he doesn't want her to. She's called the cops on him a couple of times. One of those times she called the cops on him she actually got arrested because of an outstanding warrant. Brilliant!

She was bailed out by some ex of hers that came to get her from Arizona. For some reason she won't leave with the ex. The cops supposedly tell Carl that he can't throw her out even though he "owns" the house and they aren't married. This is the same line of bullshit that I heard about Andy and his crazy wife, though at least they were married. I again insist that this is not the law and that they should probably have Carl get a lawyer and have her thrown out. And again my advice is ignored.

During dinner I'm also informed that the wife of my other brother, Brian, is now allowed at my dad's funeral. Odd dinner conversation to be sure. First, I'm not sure when it became my responsibility to fight off the angry mob of people clamoring to get into my dad's funeral. Rest assured it's a job responsibility I won't take all that seriously. Next, I didn't know he had a list of people that weren't allowed or that I was supposed to be keeping up with it. Since I don't particularly give a shit, I decide to just drop it.

"Now, when we die the remainder of that house is supposed to come out of Carl's share," my dad explains. I say I don't really want to deal with it and that Brian is more than welcome to sort it all out. "Brian won't talk to Carl," my mom says. I ask why and my dad loudly says, "Because Carl called Brian's wife a nigger."

As has happened so many times in my life (because of incidents just like this), I am very suddenly acutely aware of the number of black people in the vicinity. I count five, one of them our waiter and of course our food hasn't arrived yet. Shit. I briefly ponder how I can subtly communicate with our waiter that, while I'm perfectly fine with him dipping his balls in my parents' food, I don't really consider myself to be "with them." I don't get the opportunity and manage to gain comfort by convincing myself that 1) nobody heard it, 2) black men's balls probably aren't poisonous (my dad would probably disagree), and 3) despite my parents' best efforts I somehow turned out okay. This is where I'm supposed to talk about how many black friends I have. We'll skip over that and just move on.

Movie Night

After we make it home my parents decide they'd like to watch a DVD that Lisa had brought with her. My parents hadn't yet seen Ratatouille and it seems like the kind of movie they'd find "cute." I hear my mom say from the other room, "Well, Robert will have to fix the DVD player first. It doesn't play." Great.

I begin trying to untangle the mess of cables in their entertainment center. They've still got the satellite receiver in the mix even though they no longer use it. It's a real satellite dish by the way, not a DishTV. They've had it around 20 years because my mom got mad at the cable company and decided to boycott them. Sound familiar?

While I'm trying to figure out how to get their DVD player playing to the TV they both sit there asking me what I'm doing, which is a big help. Apparently the VCR, DVD player, and satellite haven't been used in a few years so they're not sure how they were set up or even if they ever really worked. And despite the fact that old people are blind, they all keep their houses as dark as possible which makes figuring out their wiring setup an exercise in frustration. When I try to turn on the light on the ceiling fan I get shocked again. My index finger is in a constant state of tingliness.

While trying to rewire stuff one of the coaxial cable's ends comes right off. That could be a problem. I ask my mom if she has another cable. "That bag has some stuff in it." I look in the bag and find two phone cords, a wall jack for a phone, and a power supply to some unknown device. She continues to look and screams back, "I found one but it's one like what you had." I finally give up and plug the DVD player directly into the RCA jack auxiliary inputs on the front of the TV. We start the movie.

Before the opening credits finish rolling my dad is out of his seat and headed toward the kitchen. He's going to take his medicine, find something to eat, and "go from there." Of course he couldn't do this during the 20 minutes I spent trying to fix their AV setup. No, he wanted to constantly ask me what I was doing. I pause the movie for several minutes and my mom finally says to go ahead and play it. She says "he can just listen to it from the other room." Of course, he's mostly deaf so I don't think that'll be an option. I've had enough and wander back to the bedroom jot down some notes for this blog post.

Dude, You're Getting a Dell

The next morning, Sunday, we head to Best Buy to find that the only PCI graphics card they have in stock is $135. That just seems ridiculous. My wife says, "Fuck it. Just buy them a new computer." We look at several options. We should be able to get them a whole new machine, sans monitor, for about $400. Of course both the lowest priced models (an HP and a Dell) are out of stock. We finally settle on a $500 Dell, buy it, and head out. I'm paying some for convenience but at this point I don't really care.

When we get to the car my mom asks me if I bought a whole computer. If so she'll pay for it, etc. I tell her it's a graphics card–they're bigger than she thinks and they're very wasteful on the packaging. I'm pretty sure she didn't believe it. We get back to the house and I have the new computer up and running in about 15 minutes. Incidentally, Vista is not nearly as bad as you constantly hear. I will remain a Linux person, but I just thought I'd let you know.

I tell my mom that she has a new computer and that it's an early Christmas present. She insists she should pay for it so I say, "Fine. I want your SNES and a promise that you won't buy another one." She actually refuses! She won't trade me a game console from 4 versions past that would cost $15 today for a $500 computer. Plus, you can get some of the SNES, N64, and GameCube games for the virtual console on the Wii. Mark my words, they will play that fucking Wii.

Lisa and I load up the car (including my new old computer with a non-working graphics card), say our goodbyes, and head out. Another family visit is in the books.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 19th, 2008 at 8:37 pm and is filed under Humor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.